‘Johnny Football’ Near a Plea Settlement

DALLAS (CN) — Dallas County prosecutors and former Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel are nearing an agreement to drop domestic violence charges against him, a state judge said Thursday.

State District Judge Roberto Canas quickly ended a Thursday morning hearing and gave both sides until Dec. 1 to complete the deal. Terms of settlement proposals have not been disclosed.

“Based on our discussion, it sounds like we have a process for an agreement in principal,” Canas said. “I am going to grant a two-more-week period for you to finalize the agreement and get in the paperwork.”

Manziel, 23, declined to speak to reporters after the hearing.

His attorney, Jim Darnell of El Paso, said a settlement is still in progress but that the hearing was encouraging.

Manziel, known as Johnny Football, was indicted in April after ex-girlfriend Colleen Crowley, 23, of Fort Worth, accused him of hitting her in the head for trying to escape from his car in January.

She said the assault left her unable to hear out of one ear. Crowley secured a protective order against Manziel in Tarrant County in February.

“He hit me with his open hand on my left ear for jumping out of the car,” Crowley’s affidavit stated. “I realized immediately I could not hear out of that ear, and I still cannot today.”

Crowley said she was worried Manziel was on drugs or having a “psychotic break” and he told her he was going to kill himself as he drove her back to her apartment in Fort Worth.

“I started crying even more and he told me, ‘Shut up or I’ll kill us both,’” according to the affidavit. “Then I started begging him not to kill me and he immediately responded, ‘I would never kill you. You don’t deserve that. I would only kill myself!’ He was not making sense.”

Manziel turned himself in May, then tweeted a joke about being thankful that he was wearing a shirt in his mug shot — referring to a previous shirtless mug shot taken while he was a student at Texas A&M.

A Heisman Trophy winner as a freshman, Manziel remains unsigned by any National Football League team after being released by the Cleveland Browns and by successive agents representing him.